Hyatt coming to Bethlehem

Hyatt, an international hotel chain famous for flashy style, luxury and atrium lobbies, will be part of the planned $50 million North Street Tower in downtown Bethlehem, sources said Wednesday.

The first Lehigh Valley Hyatt will add glamour and panache to the historic downtown and nearly double its inventory of hotel rooms, enhancing the city's ability to attract regional conventions and conferences, said Michael Stershic, president of the Lehigh Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"I think it says good things about downtown Bethlehem and where it's headed," Stershic said.

Project developer Joseph C. Posh would not confirm the hotel affiliation. However, he did say the size of his plans have grown from an 18-story building with 88 hotel rooms to a 22-story high-rise with 115 hotel rooms.

The original plans for the tower at Guetter and North streets included retail shops, an enclosed bridge to the North Street parking garage and 60 condominium units that would sell for $250,000 to $1 million. A news conference with Posh and Mayor John Callahan is scheduled at the site this afternoon.

Hyatt Global Corp. has 215 hotels and resorts in 43 countries, according to its Web site, with an additional 38 under development, including 13 in China.

Hyatt has four brands geared toward a variety of clients, including business travelers and the ultra-rich, but all of the brands are considered to be at the high end of upscale, said Jan Freitag, a spokesman for Smith Travel Research of Tennessee, a consulting firm that tracks industry trends. Unlike many big hotel chains, Hyatt hotels are often uniquely designed and local in character.

Among the Hyatt brands is the Hyatt Regency, a full-service luxury hotel geared to business travelers, typically in downtowns and designed to compete with the Hilton, Freitag said. But he speculated a hotel in Bethlehem might be the new "boutiquey" Hyatt Park Place brand, which does not feature 24-hour room service or dry cleaning but is still considered a luxury hotel.

A spokeswoman for Hyatt in Chicago said she had no information to offer on what would be developed in Bethlehem.

Stershic said upscale hotels in the Valley include the historic Hotel Bethlehem, the Crowne Plaza in downtown Allentown, the Hilton Garden Inns on Airport Road and on Route 100 and the Staybridge Suites on Airport Road and on Route 100. Homewood Suites, another Hilton brand, is developing a hotel on Schoenersville Road near Avenue C in Bethlehem.

Among the resorts carrying the Hyatt name are 12 casinos, including two in Las Vegas, one outside Lake Tahoe, Nev., and another in Indiana.

Stershic said he does not believe Hyatt's decision to locate in the Lehigh Valley has anything to do with the slots casinos proposed in south Bethlehem and east Allentown.

"It's far enough removed from the casino," he said. "It's not on a primary road to or from the casino. As a result, it's intended to be a freestanding hotel and a success on its own."

Stershic said he believes the presence of a second hotel within walking distance will help attract more conventions to Bethlehem's downtown. Typically, conventions want to book a block of 150 to 200 rooms.

The nine-story Hotel Bethlehem, built in 1921, has 128 rooms. When the Pennsylvania Planning Association had its convention there last year, some rooms had to be booked at hotels beyond walking distance, and the Central Moravian Church had to be used for some of the meetings, Stershic said.

A second hotel may allow for walker-friendly conventions in downtown Bethlehem, he said.

However, the rate of room occupancy in the Lehigh Valley does not necessarily indicate the need for more hotels. Occupancy rates in the first six months of 2006 are at 63.2 percent. In 2005, the rate was 66 percent.

But Stershic said he still sees the need for more rooms geared toward affluent consumers. The Hyatt also brings customers who are loyal to the Hyatt name, receiving perks from the company for multiple stays.

"Because of the brand, it does bring certain people who are very brand-loyal who weren't ordinarily coming to the Lehigh Valley," Stershic said. "That is an important piece of why that's critical for us."

The privately owned company recently began expanding aggressively in advance of what some on Wall Street believe will be an offering of publicly traded shares.

An October article in Fortune magazine reported that internal strife in the Pritzker family of Chicago, owners of the hotel chain, led to an agreement that the family's holdings will be divided 11 ways by 2011.